Ripley’s Buys Mosaic Portrait of Steve Jobs, Believe It or Not

Like a lot of kids, I made macaroni pictures at Summer camp. Yeah, ’twas fun, but was it art? We might very well ask the same about Doug Powell’s keyboard key mosaic portrait of Steve Jobs.

And, if that weren’t weird enough already, Huff Po reports that Ripley’s Believe or Not has purchased the piece, built with 5,892 computer keys. Moreover, a hidden feature of the image is that Powell spelled out words from Jobs’ life in the mosaic, including Macintosh, Apple, Pixar and iTunes, as well as select Jobs quotes.

“Steve Jobs said it best when he said, ‘I want to put a ding in the universe,'” said Powell. “I want the viewer to ponder the infinite, profound combination of thoughts, ideas and inspirations that have surely passed through this ‘intellectual porthole,’ and all made possible with just the common computer key.”

Created in black, brown, gray, yellow and shades of off-white keyboard keys.

Which leaves me with a question — were the keys made in those colors or are they just, well, gross from use? Especially the off-white and yellowed keys.